Trained like a cat

I had a friend when my kids were single-digit ages. After she hung out with our family a while, she decided she would unschool just like we did. Before long she explained to me her liberal total-unschooling policy on her son's reading. He was eight or nine. She told him he could read any book he wanted to, as long as he finished any book he started.

Quicker than training a cat not to get on the table, she trained him not to start any books at all.

SandraDodd.com/finishwhatyoustart
photo by Sandra Dodd
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"Finish what you start." NO, wait...

Once someone wrote in an unschooling discussion:

"I just have one concern. I want my children to finish what they start."

I responded:

If you start a book and decide you don't like it, will you finish it?
If you start eating a dozen donuts, and after you're not in the mood for donuts anymore, will you finish the dozen?
If you start an evening out with a guy and he irritates or frightens you, will you stay for five more hours to finish what you started?
If you put a DVD in and it turns out to be Kevin Costner and you don't like Kevin Costner, will you finish it anyway?
The only things that should be finished
are those things that seem worthwhile to do.
When I'm reading a book, I decide by the moment whether to keep reading or to stop.

Even writing this post, I could easily click out of it and not finish, or I could finish it and decide not to post it. Choices, choices, choices.

Wanting your children to learn to ignore their own judgment in favor of following a rule is not beneficial to them or to you. It will not help them learn.


SandraDodd.com/finishwhatyoustart
photo by Sandra Dodd
of a fat black widow in the back yard (and its shadow)
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Is it worthwhile?

Don't finish everything you start

The only things that should be finished are those things that seem worthwhile to do.

When I'm reading a book, I decide by the moment whether to keep reading or to stop. Even writing this post, I could easily click out of it and not finish, or I could finish it and decide not to post it. Choices, choices, choices.

SandraDodd.com/finishwhatyoustart
(There is new art there, by Karen James.)
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Don't finish the bad things.

Please don't buy into the "you have to finish what you start" stuff.

If you started screaming or spanking, would you press yourself to finish just because you had started, or wouldn't you pride yourself on your ability to stop and change course as SOON as you saw it wasn't good?

If someone starts a course of poison, it's better to throw the remaining pills in the trash than to finish it all just because you started.

SandraDodd.com/finishwhatyoustart
photo by Holly Dodd
in Albuquerque